Emerging Media Arts senior earns Maxis Studios internship
calendar icon14 Mar 2023
Lincoln, Neb.--Alijah Mallula, a senior emerging media arts and English major at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, has earned a three-month internship from Maxis Studios, in Redwood City, California.
There were 619 applicants for the internship, and Mallula was the single candidate offered the internship. She will start May 22 and continue for 12 weeks.
“I was shocked, for sure,” Mallula said. “It makes me feel great. I am very nervous, and I want to make a good impression on everyone there. And to be honest, I still cannot believe it. It feels like a dream.”
Maxis Studios is known for the popular “The Sims” video game series. Mallula does not know specifically what she’ll be working on during the internship, but she knows she will be working on sound design or dialogue.
“Maxis primarily works on The Sims, but I am not sure if that is what I will be working on or not yet,” she said.
Sound design and dialogue editing are her primary interests.
“I really want to go into sound design or dialogue editing,” she said. “I love creating sounds that engage players and users into a world and change how they view it. Audio has the ability to be able to shape a story and give it dimensionality that allows the audience to connect the characters and the story as a whole. Through my time in the emerging media arts program, I have found that games are really an intriguing storytelling platform and are a way to challenge myself in every aspect of my creative process.”
Originally from Valparaiso, Nebraska, Mallula went to high school in Malcolm. She started at UNL as a Journalism and English double major in the fall of 2019, and didn’t even know that the emerging media arts program existed.
“Two people who lived down the hall from me were in the first cohort of the program,” she said. “They would tell me about what they were working on in class, and I thought, why wasn’t I doing that? So I applied for the next year and have learned so much since I’ve been here. I have had an amazing experience so far. I have learned about programs and applications I didn’t know existed and have worked on projects that have made me a well-rounded creator.”
Mallula said everything she knows about this industry is because of what she has learned in the Johnny Carson Center for Emerging Media Arts.
“I got into writing and storytelling when I was little, and eventually into audio when I was in college,” she said. “The Carson Center has opened doors to a career I didn’t know was an option. That being said, I was involved in theater and speech in high school and was part of a playwright collective in Lincoln for a long time. I think that gave me a strong basis for me to realize that I could tell stories for living. I just didn’t know how yet.”
She is looking forward to learning as much as she can from everyone she meets at Maxis Studios.
“I hope to make a lot of new connections and to be able to make a real impact on the projects I work on,” Mallula said. “I hope to implement every piece of feedback I get into being the best creator I can be with the strongest skillset I can have.”